"This is a tactic that Microsoft has used in the past, with Linux, for example," he told SF Gate.

"When their products stop succeeding in the marketplace, when they get marginalised, as is happening now with Android, they use the large patent portfolio they've built up to get revenue from the success of other companies' products."

Zing!

It's not the first time that Google has let rip about the state of the current mobile patent wars. In August, the company published a blog post complaining of a "hostile, organised campaign" against Android, "waged through bogus patents".

As well as the complaining that the Microsoft coffers are getting fat off Android's success, Porter spoke of the company's concern that patent suits are "being used to hinder innovation".

He said, "The concern is that the more people get distracted with litigation, the less they'll be inventing.

"You can look at the development of the software industry and see a point when (software wasn't being patented) and it was a period of intense innovation.

"You didn't see Microsoft's first software patent until 1988. By that time it had come out with Word, not to mention DOS.

"So there's just no question you can look back and see that innovation happens without patents."